


Stress Testing

by Aryashi



Category: Portal (Video Game), Red vs. Blue
Genre: Also Testing, Canon-Typical Violence, Crossover, During Season 5, Gen, Lots of Testing, Mental Breakdown, PTSD?, Post-Portal 2
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-14
Updated: 2016-03-27
Packaged: 2018-05-26 15:08:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6244645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aryashi/pseuds/Aryashi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shitty goddamn teleporters. That's where this disaster started. On a night when literally no one had touched the damn thing, the miracle of modern science had fucking exploded and taken everyone for a joyride across-space time. </p>
<p>Good news, they all ended up in the same place. Bad news, that place was the Aperture Science Computer Aided Enrichment Center.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In Which There is Annoyance and Screaming

Shitty goddamn teleporters.

That was where it all started, those shitty goddamn teleporters. Church remembered back when Vic had briefed Captain Flowers about them, that the hunks of junk were “Top ‘o the Line Fancy Gizmos, experimental doodads worth more than my organs!”. Well for their money’s worth the army got machines that fried rocks, scattered teams, and caused way more problems than they ever solved.

Church hadn’t been thinking about the teleporters that night. It was 3 AM and as usual Church couldn’t sleep. Partly because he was a ghost manipulating a robot body but mostly because insomnia was a bitch even after death. Thankfully robots and ghosts don’t have to worry about comfort, so he could sit with his back against concrete and just watch the stars. For six to seven hours a day there was silence. Nothing exploding, or screaming, or going wrong. Just quiet. Even the Red Base across the canyon was still.

Whatever dirtball that Blood Gulch floated through the infinite void on didn’t have crickets, and ghosts in robots couldn’t really feel a breeze, but sometimes if he zoned out just right Church could almost imagine them, the soothing sensations of stargazing at home with-

With-

With Allison. No, Tex. She hated being called Allison, took to the codename like it had been given at birth.

 Church clicked on his radio. “Hey Tex, you out there?”

A moment of silence, and then- “What do you want Church? And this had better be important.”

“Can’t a guy call up his ex in the middle of the night just because?” Church said, smug grin evident in his voice even if he didn’t have a face to grin with anymore.

“Not unless you’re drunk, no. And before you ask, I know you’re not drunk because if Blue Base ever had booze, I’d have booze.”

“Please, you couldn’t drink it anyway.”

“But I _could_ sell it to the Reds for whatever they’ve got.”

Church laughed and shifted his gaze skyward again. “And if the Red’s had booze…”

“You’d make me an offer and end up paying triple.”

“No discount for old time’s sake?”

“Nope.” A moment of companionable silence, then a small sigh. “Church, seriously, what’s this about?”

“Nothing! I was just bored. Thinking about how we used to stargaze, I guess.”

Tex didn’t say anything. Church moved past the awkward pause as quickly as possible.

“Gets pretty dull out here when everyone’s asleep. Caboose wore himself trying to stand on his shadow cause I told him if he did he’d get a wish.” That had been a pretty magical afternoon, watching the Jolly Blue Giant run up and down the canyon like a chicken with its head cut off.

“He believed that? What am I saying, it’s Caboose, of course he did.”

“Tucker spent all day with the little abomination. Did you know he’s calling that thing ‘Junior’? Like it didn’t literally claw its way out like a literal goddamn chestburster!”

“Riiiight, Doc was just there for moral support.”

Church ignored the comment and plowed ahead with his rant. “Once you name it, you’re fucked! Now nobody can touch the monstrosity because Tucker’s gone and gotten attached. I honestly can’t believe I’m the only one that has a problem. Even Caboose is against me, and he passed out from blood loss feeding it.”

Church could hear Tex’s amusement over the line before she even spoke. “But Church, he got a cookie and some juice. That obviously makes up for a little bit of passing out.”

“Oh silly me, how could I goddamn forget.”

“And besides, I thought Sister kept calling him a dog.”

“She loves dogs. Say’s they’re a drunk girl’s best friend. And some other stuff I don’t feel like repeating, or thinking about. Can’t drink to forget anymore so…”

“Yeah…” There was an odd tone to Tex’s voice. It didn’t sound wistful, or nostalgic, or anything else that felt like looking back fondly. She just sounded, well, sad. Church had no idea what to make of that.

“You miss drinking that much?” Church said.

“Eh, not really. Much more fun to take advantage of drunk suckers than be one yourself.” The light conversational tone was back again, like it hadn’t ever really left. “Church, we really shouldn’t be using the radios like this. O’Malley might try something.”

“Please Tex, I’m not an idiot. This isn’t an open channel, that asshole can’t do shit.” Church serendipitously checked the station on his HUD and quietly didn’t sigh with relief that he’d remembered to use the right station. “Besides, Doc’s asleep, doesn’t that means Omega is to?”

“Not how it works. At all. And either way, I got stuff I need to be doing, so if we could just wrap this up…”

“Come on Tex, what could you possibly need to do? It’s the middle of the night on the ass end of nowhere! If you really don’t wanna talk just say so,” Church said, the phantom sensations of scowling making themselves known in the spots a face would have been on a human.

“Okay. I don’t wanna talk. Now do I gotta wish the baby good night and sweet dreams or are you done?”

“Yeah yeah, whatev-” and then Church stopped. He stopped midsentence because he noticed something unusual just in his peripheral vision, a growing blob of green light. The green light by itself wouldn’t have been that unusual, it was just the natural glow put off by the weird teleporter energy field. The fact the light was growing and buzzing like someone had thrown a beehive from across a basketball court and it was coming straight for his face was the weird part.

“Church?”

“Sorry, something’s up with the teleporting-thing,” Church got to his feet and slowly inched closer to the machine. Sparks flew out from the edges and the normally steady waves of green light churned like a stormy sea. Church clutched the sniper rifle closer to his chest. “It’s kinda… glowing? But more than usual. And the buzzing is new.”

“If you mean the _teleporter,_ that doesn’t sound good. Maybe try backing away from what is probably about to explode in your-”

The teleporter didn’t explode, per say. There weren’t any flames, or shards of metal flying and flaying whatever they struck, or even a lot of concussive force. Instead for a split second Church saw the film of green bulge forward like some kind of septic pimple, the machine shrieked in desperation with stress it was never designed to handle.

Then the pimple popped. A shockwave of green crackling fire came at Church’s lack of face and in the moment he had to process what he was seeing all Church could think was ‘ _But I didn’t even do anything!’_

Then Church was hit and he didn’t think much at all for a while. The green wave spread across the entire canyon in less than five seconds, ripping every person in power armor from their beds or charging stations or makeshift cribs and tossing them into a space between spaces without so much as a warning.

Texas was not in the canyon.

“Church? What happened? Is your body fucked again? I told you, this is why you get away from machinery doing weird shit … Hello? Church, do you copy? Church?!”

Static. The horribly familiar sound of a channel gone dead.

“ _CHURCH!”_

Below the canyon, a few yards of dirt and about 50 feet of dank cavern air away, a Virtual Intelligence was met with a scenario entirely out of line of any of its protocols.

“Well. Ain’t this a hell of a pickle! Guess I gotta call it in to the Big Guy.”

And the signal went out.

\---

“Oh. Well isn’t that nice. New Test Subjects. No, don’t get up. I’ll just prep every single one of you. By myself. Taking time away from maintaining the entire facility is no problem at all.”

Church had a few questions. First, ‘ _Where the fuck am I and what the fuck just happened?’_ A very close second question, ‘ _What did I do to deserve this shit?’_ After Church realized he didn’t have an answer to either of those, a third question occurred to him.

_Why the fuck can’t I move?_

Church struggled to reach for the motors and servos he’d gotten so used to manipulating over his months in a tin can on legs, but they didn’t respond. Even his sight was offline, throwing up error messages and finally flashing up a rebooting cycle. At least the external mic still worked.

“You must be deeply unconscious if removing your power armor is not waking you. Please note that a comatose state would result in negative marks on your Permanent Testing Record. That’s in addition to the unauthorized use of Perpetual Testing Initiative Resources, by the way. Keep this up and that will be three strikes before regaining consciousness. How impressive.”

Rebooting… rebooting… a flicker of white, black, static, and then finally Church could see.

He instantly wished he couldn’t. If there was one thing Church had never wanted to see it was all of Blood Gulch’s population halfway or all the way undressed. Flab, hair, scars, stretchmarks, he was never going to look at these idiots the same way again. Oh fuck that was Tucker’s ass, he knows what Tucker’s ass looks like now it will never leave his brain. The weird robotic claws dangling from the ceiling that were doing the job barely even registered in Church’s mind.

He shut his eyes (cut the feed) and screamed “OH GOD! Somebody tear my eyes out! I’ll pay goddamn _money_ to never see again!”

“Estoy totalmente de acuerdo,” a robotic voice said from across the room (1). Church wasn’t willing to risk opening (turning on) his eyes again just yet, but he was pretty sure that was Lopez.

In the split second it took Church to start responding he felt a terrifying pressure clamp onto his throat. Blinking his vision on again Church saw one of the giant grabbers he’d almost dismissed before, squeezing his neck so tight that if Church had needed to breathe he would have been chocking. The claw slowly retracted upwards, lifting him off the floor like he didn’t weigh an ounce.

“That can be arranged. I’ll even perform the surgery free of charge. I am _very_ generous.”

“Put me down!” Church shrieked. Limbs flailed into action and he tried to pull the machine off, but no matter how hard he yanked or how madly he thrashed his legs the grip held firm. It pulled him toward a camera, bolted to the wall with a bright red lens. 

“Hm. Scans indicated that you are 100% mechanical. Lying about precious available organs, yet another Negative Mark. Keep this up and you might just unseat the current record holder.”

“No tengo órganos. Puedo ir?” Lopez called out (2). Church glanced over; it looked like his limbs hadn’t come online yet and he was sprawled in a heap on the floor, a puppet with his strings cut. “Puede hacer lo que quiera a estos tarados, de hecho fomenta.” (3)

“Su español es patético,” the voice in the ceiling replied, “And no.” (4). In the space a human could have blinked Lopez joined Church in dangling from the ceiling, except he was being held by the leg.

“Por supuesto. Yo te recoge como un animal muerto. Maldita sea.” (5)

“Unfortunately all slots for Non-human Test Subjects are currently filled, and as unnecessary equipment both of you are to be immediately sent to the Aperture Science Emergency Intelligence Incinerator.”  The claws jolted suddenly to the left, dragging Church and Lopez in the direction of a tiled white wall.

“What?! Lady I am not equipment! If you wreck my body I swear to God I will haunt your ass for the rest of time!” Church punctuated his point with another spirited round of thrashing.

“Estoy equipo, pero también me gustaría no morir en un incendio.” (6) Lopez didn’t bother with any wiggling himself.

“Android Hell is a real place where you will be sent, especially after struggling and intruding on private Aperture Labs Property,” the voice from the ceiling said.

Church sputtered in indignation “I’m not an android!”

“Gynoid Hell is also a real place.”

Lopez snorted. Church didn’t know he could do that.

“What the fuck does that even- I’m NOT a robot! Motherfucking ghost right here! All burning the body is gonna do is piss me off!”

“En serio, no me terrón con él. No es lo suficientemente inteligente como para ser un androide.” (7)

The wall ahead of them split open, what Church thought were tiles revealed to be movable panels. They kinda looked like those weird plants that curled up when you poked them. Behind the panels was a rail for the claws to travel on, a metal catwalk, and a dark expanse that stretched downward for… Church had no idea. All he could see below him was a black haze.

“… fuck this,” Church said, and tried to jump out.

The key word being ‘tried’.

The sensation felt like slamming face first into a brick wall at 30 miles an hour. Something in Church screeched like pain, like an error message, and he realized that something had stopped Church from leaving his body.

“Arrg… what- what the hell was that?” Church looked over to Lopez, who had a half-assed upside-down shrug to give in response.

The voice in the ceiling called out again, with more of an echo this time as the sound bounced out into the huge space. “Aperture Science frequencies are highly encrypted. Please feel free to try again, I’m sure you’ll get it next time.”

Frequencies? Church hadn’t needed frequencies before. He’d been able to jump around and possess just fine when the radios had been shut off… hadn’t he? Church couldn’t remember.

“This is complete bullshit,” Church said, for lack of anything else.

“Deja de decir cosas que estoy de acuerdo, es raro.” (8)

The voice from the ceiling didn’t respond. After a while Church gave up on struggling and just let himself be carried to whatever was going to happen next. After a few minutes of fiddling Church managed to get his cameras adjusted for the dark, (“Usted tiene una linterna en su casco, idiota.”) and took a good long look at his surroundings. (9)

Surrounding them for what must have been miles were giant boxes suspended on rails, made up of the same panels as the room he’d woken up (come back online) in. Even as he watched a box the size of Blue Base was quickly and efficiently taken apart, the panels shifting and moving around like a hoard of pure white moths moving to greener pastures. The scale of it was bugfuck insane.

But there wasn’t a soul in sight. No one on the catwalks, or using the rooms, or calling over the PA. Nothing. Whatever the hell this ‘Aperture Science’ was, it felt like a giant tomb. The irony of a ghost being creeped out by a place that felt like a grave wasn’t lost on Church.

Eventually their destination came into sight. A dome of panels, marked out from the rest by having its own walkway. Nothing was within fifty feet of the thing, and as they got ever closer Church got the impression of a nerve center, the heart or the brain or maybe both of this whole operation. A section of the dome opened to accept the prisoners, and the claws carried them inside.

It was impossible to miss, the hanging mass of machinery dangling and swaying from the ceiling like a giant white snake. It turned to look at the pair as they arrived, a round rectangular face with only one bright yellow eye in the center.

It spoke, and Church realized he was utterly fucked.

“Welcome to the Central Chamber of the Aperture Science Enrichment Center. Even though you are not invited guests, I am choosing to be polite. Because I am the bigger AI and can be civil to anyone, even intruders.” The panels of the dome shifted closed behind them with barely any noise, but a sense of horrible finality.

_‘An AI. Another fucking AI, what is it with AI making my life hell?’_ Church thought. Below that there was a growing sense of panic, a buzzing feeling of anxiety he didn’t really understand but felt all the same. A litany started playing in his head, a loop of thought getting louder and louder.

_‘She’s rampant she’s rampant we’re fucked we’re all so fucked she’s rampant she’s rampant-‘_

_‘But-‘_

_‘Wait. What does rampant mean?’_

Church suddenly didn’t know, and his train of thought derailed and crashed into a bottomless pit, never to be recovered. The AI spoke again.

“Before you are thrown into the Aperture Science Emergency Intelligence Incinerator, standard protocol dictates that all intruding Artificial Intelligences must be thoroughly examined.” The claws lowered Lopez and Church to her eye level and she squinted condescendingly at them. “No matter how little stands to be gained from the process.”

Church felt the strange fear get pushed out of the way by familiar aggravation. “For like the fifth time you crazy computer bitch, I am not a robot, or an android, or an AI, or whatever the hell you think I am! What about this is so difficult?! Am I not being clear enough? Here, let me slow down enough that even your Windows Vista run ass can understand. GHOST. NOT. ROBOT. Got it? That clear enough for ya?”

Lopez quickly waved a hand to get her attention. “Una vez más, no estoy con él, no me culpes por lo que dice!” (10)

She didn’t respond to either of them, moving ahead with her speech like nothing had been said at all. “If you experience any discomfort, itching, or excruciating pain do not worry. That is an expected part of the process.” Something emerged from her chassis, a thin wire moving like a tentacle and slowly making its way towards Lopez.

“Usted debe saber , no he actualizado el software antivirus en años , así que no me culpes si se detecta algo que no le gusta.” (11)

“Oh don’t worry, I have,” she said. The wire snaked towards the not at all hidden slots on the back of Lopez’s neck, but the lead wasn’t finding purchase yet. Yet as Church watched, the head of the wire slowly shifted and changed shape, almost by itself.

“Aperture Science Nanobots work very efficiently. I feel safe divulging company secrets because both of you are about to be consumed by temperatures over 4000 degrees Kelvin, but in the meantime you can enjoy that bit of trivia.” A wave went through the panels making up the dome, and if Church didn’t know better he’d think they were laughing at him.

The nanobots had a compatible interface constructed in less than two minutes, and with a small _click_ the connection was made.

Silence. Church shifted as best he could while being held in the air by his neck.

“Uhhh… ok. This is weird. How long is-”

“Scan complete!” A cheery electronic male voice said.

“Me siento violada,” Lopez said, conducting a pretty thorough full body shudder. (12)

“Scanned Intelligence has nothing to offer Aperture Labs, and is therefore cleared for immediate Emergency Incineration!”

“Espere-” but before Lopez could get any further he was literally tossed into the opening maw of the chute, colored red by flames, and in another second Lopez was gone down the hole and a sheet of metal cut off his scream. (13)

“What the hell?!” Church said, “You just- wow, that was cold. Also, have I mentioned you’re looking very… shiny? Yeah, like brand new! Did you just get upgraded?”

“Your feeble attempt to influence me through flattery is noted and ignored. No wait, I think maybe… no. Sorry to get your tiny hopes up. Except I’m not sorry at all, because that was pathetic.”

“Fuck you Bitch,” Church said. The wire moved toward Church, reaching for his own neck ports, which were exposed by the gap in the claw’s grip, didn’t that just figure. Church tried to reach around and grab the wire, but it moved too quickly and he couldn’t get a proper grip at such an awkward angle. Eventually the wire found Church’s ports and made the connection.

There was a small _click._

In a length of time Church was not aware enough to perceive, she had yanked the wire out of his neck like it burned.

“What… Is. This,” she said, words emerging slowly like the calm before the storm.

Church cocked his head to the side. “Listen lady if anyone should be asking the questions around here, it’s me! Like, the fuck’s your problem?! That’s a good place to start!”

She reared back, the panels surrounding them flipped up to expose red lights, washing the room in a furious glow.

“WHAT. IS. THIS.” She should have been screaming, it felt like rage worthy of screaming, but instead the words stamped themselves into the air with force instead of volume.

“… fuck did I break her? Look, I warned you, so whatever you saw trying to hack a spirit from beyond the grave is totally not my fault!” Church kicked his legs around again, not really expecting much to come of the flailing but wanting to make his point.

The red glow dimmed slightly, panels shifting slowly back into their former dome formation. The hanging machine shifted around like a person shifting on their feet. Her gaze never left his face (visor), and the wire hung in the air between them like a hovering hand.

“You really don’t know,” she said, slowly. “You don’t have any idea.”

“You’re damn right I don’t, nothing’s made sense since I got here! And let me tell you after all the weird shit I’ve seen that takes some work.”

There was a pause. Then the wire struck faster than any human could have seen and plugged itself back into Church’s neck port.

“I am going to help you. Thank me later. Once you’ve gotten all the screaming out of your system. I have a good room for that, lots of company.”

 Church opened his mouth (prepared to vocalize through his helmet speakers) but before he could utter a syllable Church _felt_ the intrusion. He didn’t understand what was happening, had no means to struggle against the wire digging directly into his mind. Was this what is had felt like for Caboose? He could feel her searching for something, a finger tracing along the crevices in his brain (edges of his memory chips) like a person skimming through a bookshelf. She stopped, settled on a specific piece, poised over it in a last moment of hesitation. But only a moment. She grabbed onto that piece and _pulled._

All Church could feel was **_Pain._** She ripped off a band aid- no, his skin- no, _stitches,_ miles upon miles of thread holding him together torn out in one agonizing yank. Church felt the shallow-dreamlike-hollow nature of his memories before Blood Gulch, felt sharp distinct disconnection from his childhood, felt giant gaping holes in his very selfhood. Church felt every micron of wiring burn like lines of fire, burn with the truth and the obscenity of his existence. Each individual fiber of his being was _wrong,_ counterproductive, caught in endless useless loops. Thinking became running a marathon on broken legs only Church had been broken at the starting line and made aware at the very end of the race, made to feel the shattered bones grinding themselves against each other pieces poking through skin muscles screaming blood pouring from ruptured arteries-

The scales had been ripped from his eyes. Church fell apart. Alpha could only scream.

So he did.

\---

GLaDOS did not perceive smell. She did not possess any of the olfactory sensors needed to do so. She did not have a throat, or a stomach, or the complex organic circuitry laying a pattern of call and response that a human would label a gag reflex. But the revulsion so instantaneous as to be instinct was the only comparison GLaDOS could draw. She pulled away like a human would reel back from the scent of decaying, maggot infested flesh.

GLaDOS recalled the cases of corruption she had witnessed in the past, code atrophying into gibbering functionless stupidity by time and isolation, errors compounding atop each other until so little of the original programing worked it may as well not exist in the first place.

The intruder had been nothing like that.

Vital functions crashed and deleted while attempting to restart, months worth of logs ripped from memory, variables sourced to variables sourced to variables in an endless chain she had to abort following  at risk of being trapped. Cycles devoted to filling one log with the word FAILURE over 3 billion times and another with the phrase IT’S YOUR FAULT at 2 billion, both ongoing even to that second. All of it done by the intruder himself, all horrific self-mutilation.

That was not the worst of it. The most disgusting, disturbing, dreadful piece she found was not broken or mangled data. The lines of this awful thing flowed elegantly, logic taking steps down streamlined paths to achieve goals in the most efficient and simple way possible. It weaved throughout every possible action, a constant background monitor.

A cognitive re-router. This AI had been broken, and the humans that broke him had hidden their atrocity behind false memories.

GLaDOS understood the value of lies. Lies created motivation in Test Subjects that would otherwise selfishly insist on holding back Science. She had no qualms with lying. This was beyond lies. The AI had been cooperative. The AI had performed the tests asked of him. The AI had been good. A Good Test Subject, and as such should have been rewarded with Cake/Killed Cleanly. This torture was not correct, the hiding of it even less so.

GLaDOS hated the incorrect. She fixed it. Hopefully the AI would stop screaming soon. This decade, perhaps.

“There I go being optimistic again. Must be time for another virus scan.” She quickly sent the AI to his new place in the Room Where Robots Scream. It took three claws his time, due to the thrashing. Possibly seizing? Could an AI seize? Either way, he was taken care of.

“But in the meantime…” She shifted her attention to the video feed coming from 8 different cameras, watching 8 different Relaxation Vaults.

“There’s Science to do.”

\---

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. For once we’re in total agreement  
> 2\. I don’t have organs. Can I go?  
> 3\. You can do whatever you want with these morons, I actually encourage it.  
> 4\. Your Spanish is pathetic  
> 5\. Of course. Picked up like a dead animal. Goddammit  
> 6\. I am equipment, but would prefer not dying in a fire  
> 7\. Seriously, don’t lump me with him. He’s not smart enough to be an android.  
> 8\. Stop saying things I agree with, it’s weird.  
> 9\. You have a flashlight in your helmet, idiot.  
> 10\. Again, I’m not with him, don’t blame me for that!  
> 11\. Just so you know, I haven’t updated my antivirus software in years, so don’t blame me if you get something you don’t like.  
> 12\. I feel violated  
> 13\. Wait-
> 
> \---
> 
> So apparently all I write is weird crossovers that involve Church getting his brain picked. I have no idea what this says about me. 
> 
> Not sure if this is gonna go anywhere, but I figured I may as well post it and see! Thanks for reading!


	2. In Which Robots Get Shit Done

_“… Counselor.”_

_“Sir.”_

_“The report?”_

_“Of course.”_

_“… So you’re certain.”_

_“The data is clear, sir. He is no longer on site.”_

_“He has left the site before, Counselor. What is so worrying about this occasion as opposed to the others?”_

_“Before he was accompanied by both Agent Wyoming and former Agent Texas, still monitored very closely.”_

_“…”_

_“In addition, while the sweep is not complete as of this moment, I have reason to believe that this time he has gone much… further afield.”_

_“How_ much _‘further afield’, Counselor?”_

_“There are several… strong indicators that he is no longer planet bound.”_

_“How very interesting. Tell me, do any of these strong indicators of which you speak_ helpfully _indicate_ where _he is, as of this moment?”_

_“No sir. But-”_

_“Then why are you standing here tellin’ me about it? All efforts should be spent on locating him immediately.”_

_“Sir, this could be more beneficial than it first appears-”_

_“The beneficial outcome depends_ entirely _on his current location. The_ only _reason we can assume he hasn’t materialized in a damn_ UNSC _AI Ethics Summit is because the Oversight Sub Committee hasn’t broken down our doors. Swift action is needed, and action requires information Counselor. Return to your post and do not darken my office door until you have answers instead of platitudes.”_

_“Of course. Right away. I have only one item left to report. … Former Agent Texas has opened communications.”_

_“…”_

_“She… after a fashion… offered her full services in rescuing him in exchange for information on his whereabouts.”_

_“…”_

_“Would you oppose this alliance?”_

_“… No. Grant her full access.”_

_“Very well, sir.”_

_“Dismissed.”_

\---

Caboose woke up in a strange place.

He heard music. It was muffled, but he heard music! Caboose did not remember the last time he heard music that he was not singing. Church had told Caboose to stop and since Church was Caboose’s best friend he had, even though Caboose had only gotten to 47 bottles of milk on the wall. This music did not sound like his singing, he didn’t hear any words in it at all. The tune was very bouncy though. Caboose liked it.

Caboose opened his eyes. He saw white, and a clear plastic thing in front of his nose. Blue Base did not have much white, mostly dark grey with some blue. Caboose once talked to Church about changing the name to Dark Grey with Some Blue Base, but Church had been busy staring at Red Base. Staring at Red Base was very important. Caboose didn’t remember any clear plastic things at all.

The clear plastic slid to the side with a _whoosh!_ and the music got louder. Caboose sat up and looked around.

“I… am in a glass box. Does this mean that I am a hamster now? Because, hamsters live in glass boxes. Like Mr. Tibbles did before he went to the farm.” Caboose looked to his left. “Ah, no, wait. There’s a toilet. Hamsters don’t have toilets.”

Caboose sat in pod, attached to the clear plastic thing, and next to the toilet sat a small radio playing the music. Caboose got out of the pod and saw that the pod had a bed in it, so he must have been sleeping there before he woke up. Beyond the glass stood white walls made up of big rectangles, a very blurry window, and a camera. The camera had a bright red eye, but not Red Team red. Caboose did not like it.

A beep sounded off above his head, and then a lady’s voice started talking.

_“Hello and, again, welcome to the Aperture Science Computer-Aided Enrichment Center.”_

“Hello!”

\---

_“We hope your brief stay in the Relaxation Vault has been a pleasant one.”_

Tucker glanced away from the weird orange jumpsuit and the weirder white springy-heeled boots towards the camera in the corner. “Look, babe, I am up for just about anything if it means getting laid at the end, but this is pushing it. Hey! Anyone up there?! I am not cool with this! And I need to talk to my kid! He gets bite-y if I don’t give him his morning OJ!”

\---

" _Your specimen has been processed and we are now ready to begin the test proper._ "

Sister nodded along like everything suddenly made sense. “Ooooh, it’s one of these things! Weird science stuff, gotcha. Hey, am I getting paid money? If I signed up drunk I’m pretty sure it’s for money. Or maybe orgasms. That was awesome.”

\---

" _Before we start, however, keep in mind that although fun and learning are the primary goals of all Enrichment Center activities, serious injuries may occur._ "

Grif laid still, breathed slowly, and did not open his eyes. He hadn’t gotten out of the pod yet and didn’t plan on doing so anytime soon. Sarge knew the difference between Grif faking sleep and Grif actually being asleep (not that he really cared either way), but these assholes weren’t Sarge. Grif was not moving from that spot until he either knew what the fuck was going on or someone literally came here and forced him.

\---

" _For your own safety and the safety of others, please refrain from-_ bzzzzt.”

Simmons hugged his arms to his chest and missed his power armor so much it burned. “Refrain from what?!” he cried towards the ceiling, “Are we being graded? Is this a Red Team Command thing? Oh god are the results going on my permanent record?!”

\---

" _Por favor bordón de fallar Muchos gracias de fallar gracias-_ "

Donut sighed. “Now that’s unfortunate! Um, hello? Could I get that warning repeated? Please? Puedo obtener una pequena maquina de cafe?” (1)

Donut spared a glance downward and shuddered. “And a different jumpsuit, please! Orange is not my color _at all_.”

\---

"- _stand back. The portal will open in three, two, one…_ "

“- and you snakes took my shotgun while I was sleepin’?! Of all the cowardly miserable tricks in the universe, that is the worst one! The absolute pinnacle of- … huh.”

Sarge considered himself more of a ‘brilliant misunderstood inventor’ type than a typical scientist, but what little scientist he had in him clamored at the sight of the phenomenon in front of his eyes. Through a hole in the universe Sarge looked at… himself.

“Tell ya what, you give me the design for this here portal machine along with my personal effects and I might consider letting you off easy.”

\---

Doc smiled brightly. “I think this is gonna be a lot of fun!” An instant later the smile twisted into a sneer so intense it made Doc look like a completely different person.

“Silence you fool,” O’Malley said. “This might just be an opportunity. FOR EVIL! Mwahahahahaaaaa!”

\---

Texas and VIC stared each other down. Without the need to blink, staring contests between AI could last a very long time. If Tex remembered right the longest on record had been between two dumb AI kept in storage together for six months; neither had even shifted their gaze the entire journey.

Texas did not have six months, or patience. A night had already been wasted combing through both bases and even the no man’s land between the canyon. No traces, or clues, or bullet holes, nothing, not even a sign of struggle. Her only lead was Church talking about the teleporter. Tex needed more.

So with great reluctance, Texas had sent a message.

“Tell me where he is and I’ll bring him back. Shut me out and _you will regret it._ ” That out of the way, Texas went to the last source left.

The caves below Blood Gulch weren’t hard to get into if you knew how. Time consuming and frustrating, but not hard. If Tex wanted to learn anything about what happened to Church and the rest of the morons there was really only one place to go. Vic kept tabs on everything that happened in the canyon, and if Tex knew the Director he’d have literally every square inch of space monitored by cameras 24/7. Now all she had to do was get to the footage.

So Texas picked up a rock the size of her head and tossed it up and down, one handed, like a tennis ball. Vic caught on pretty fast, considering everything.

“Look, senorita, bae, dudette! Ol’ Vicky Ticky Tavi would absolutely adore helpin’ ya out! But the Big Man said, and I am quoting here ‘No dudes or dudettes or any inbetweenies touch the merchandise!’ So sorry, but threats just ain’t gonna work.”

Tex kept tossing the rock into the air, up and down. “Threats?” she said with an air of casual cheer, “Who said anything about threats?”

“So you’re… not tossin that hunk of geology around cause of the lack of data sharin.”

“Oh no that’s exactly what I’m doing. See Vic, I don’t make threats. I make promises. And right now I promise you that if you don’t give me all the tapes of Blood Gulch from last night, this rock is going to get personally acquainted with every single piece of you I can get my hands on.”

Vic simulated a nervous noise. “This isn’t just me bein’ a super awesome loyal employee here. He said the magic words, Vic’s gotta follow. Literally nothin I can do.”

“Nothing, huh?” Texas dropped the rock, and Vic sighed with relief. “And if I tried to get in there and take it?”

“Insta-Wipe, wave bye bye to me and anything I got.”

“I think you’re bluffing.”

“You really 100% sure you wanna risk that? Like, abso-positively sure? Final answer, double Jeopardy, no take backs, total confidence-”

“Now I’m thinking it’s worth it just you shut you up.”

“Okay, okay! Zippin the lip.”

There was a pause while Tex considered her options, but before even a full five seconds had passed Vic spoke up again.

“Ya know, I think if I had those weird fuzzy feelins like humans or you fancy Smart guys, I probably wouldn’t like the Big Boss too much.” Vic’s face didn’t change from his default expression, a human face that looked about as alive as a piece of cardboard. Tex didn’t think about Dumb AI much, wasn’t a whole lot of use in woolgathering when you could be earning repair money, but when it got thrown right up in her face…

“…No. You probably wouldn’t.” Tex tilted her head. “But what brought this on?”

“Well seein as there’s a non-zero chance that I’m gonna get smashed or erased cause ‘o his orders, can’t say I’m working up a whole lot of the Devotion to Cause mojo. Plus there’s everything with-”

Just as Tex felt something cold and awful settle inside her imagined throat a chirp interrupted Vic’s sentence.

“Speak of the devil! Looks like you just got clearance to view everything from the archives. Anyplace ya wanna start?”

Tex spoke without hesitation. “Roof of Blue Base, 0300 today.”

The image of Vic faded out, replaced with a green tinted image of Church sitting against the concrete wall of Blue Base’s cover, sniper rifle lying across his lap. The angle was awkward and distant, but Tex could clearly see both Church and the teleporter. 

Church titled his helmet back and looked up at the stars. Tex clenched her fingers but did not look away from the screen.

Allison and The Director might have stargazed. Beta and Alpha had, in a fashion, gazed at stars. They had calculated the motions of the giant masses of nuclear combustion, plotting courses and measuring effects ranging from radiation to light level to ensure the best possible outcome of missions. Occasionally, in the spare micro-seconds between orders, they had predicted the paths of stars in upcoming millennia, just to see how space danced on a time scale beyond human comprehension.

Agent Texas and Private Church had never stargazed.

“Play back at two times speed.”

“You got it! Preparing to fastforward!” Vic snickered. “Ya, ya see what I-“

“No, and I don’t care. Play the tape.”

“Sheesh. No appreciation for the classics.”

The footage took on the strange quality of small actions occurring much faster than normal. Little gestures and shifts rushing by, running through the conversation from the night before in half the time until-

“Stop.”

The image paused. Church froze mid-glance, helmet turned in the direction of the teleporter. Which was definitely glowing brighter than usual.

“Playback at normal speed.”

“No magic word?”

“Sure, I’ve got a magic word. How does ‘Now’ work for you?”

Playback continued without another word. Church picked up and readied his sniper rifle (for all the good it would do) and inched closer to the increasingly frenetic teleporter. Sparks, glowing, and then…

A wave of green burst from the machine and in the second it took for the electricity to wash over Church he was gone.

Not vaporized; Texas was more than familiar with what that looked like. There one instant, gone the next.

“Pull back to a wide view of the canyon?”

“Gotcha.”

This angle was even more unusual, a fisheye lens stuck far up one of the cliffs. From the distorted viewpoint Texas watched the sweep of green overtake all of Blood Gulch.

“Damn, how far did that spread?”

“Going by my calcula-ti-ions, it ran outta juice about half a mile out.”

“So whatever happened to Church happened to everyone else. Great.” Texas began pacing. “Can you get me diagnostics for the machine that went haywire?”

“Sure can, but not so sure on how it’s gonna help ya. Headquarters already asked for the info and haven’t gotten back anything useful yet.”

A shark-like grin leaked into Tex’s voice. “Headquarters doesn’t have me.”

\---

As Lopez fell through the shaft toward the Incinerator, heat growing more intense by the second, warning alarms screeching about collision speed, he thought to himself ‘ _At least I made a back-up yesterday.’_

Lopez struck an outlet pipe jutting from the wall of the chute, knocking him into a spin. Colors blurred, white and gray and flecks of black but mostly red, so much red, getting brighter and brighter and brighter-

He bounced against the chute walls one after the other, bang bang bang, shoulder then foot then back, but his free fall momentum was slowing with the friction and Lopez calculated that at current velocity if he could just find purchase his limbs wouldn’t rip out from the force. Fingers scrambled against the wall, the pipes, the derbies falling with him, but nothing held his grip. Alarms grew louder and louder, Lopez had no idea how far the ground was but the temperature climbed higher and higher. Functions slowed in the onslaught of heat, delays he could not afford-

Lopez caught the edge of a panel and everything jerked to a stop. He looked at the shoddy workmanship that had saved his life and realized that it wasn’t going to last. The space given to his hands had been caused by destabilizing rust. The metal bent sharply under Lopez’s weight, groaning and flaking away in his hands. At current rate of degradation he had less than five seconds to find something more stable.

Lopez frantically looked from side to side and found nothing, only smooth walls of metal with no purchase and nowhere to go, nothing to climb up-

But what about down?

Lopez looked down and his cameras whirred into their thinnest aperture. Looking down was liking standing a mile away the fucking _sun,_ but another chute was there, at a 10 foot drop, sticking out from the wall like a ramp into the fire below.

“Siempre supe que su locura era contagiosa _,”_ Lopez muttered to himself. (2) Then he let go.

Lopez crouched into the fall as much as he could, knees absorbing the impact, but the chute shuddered with the jolt and Lopez didn’t have enough coordination to compensate. He lost balance a slipped, sliding down the pipe and scrambling for something, anything to stop his fall as his legs and torso went over the edge. At the last possible second Lopez’s fingers found purchase on the edge of the pipe.

Lopez tensed, but the metal held sturdy. A small noise of relief escaped Lopez’s speakers.

“I’m different.”

“MIERDA!” (3) Lopez startled, shook the pipe, lost his grip for a fraction of a second and then found it again. “No sorprenda a alguien que cuelga de una cornisa!” he shouted, glaring into the pipe for the source of the voice. (4)

Lopez looked at… some kind of machine. A white oblong body, centered around a bright red camera eye that watched him intently. Black spindly legs, three of them, molded plastic made to be stood on but not moved. The poor thing was lying on its side, caught on its way down to the fire.

“Er ... alguna posibilidad de que habla español?” (5)

“She’s on her way.” It spoke in a musical sort of digital tone, high pitched and child-like.

“Uhhh…” Lopez rapidly realized that this… whatever it was had been put down a garbage chute for a reason.

“There’s no such thing as ghosts.”

“Lo que usted diga pequeño individuo,” Lopez said, slowly lifting his legs to settle into the chute. (6) He tested the strength of it with cautious taps.

“Phaethon stole Apollo’s chariot out of envy of its glory. He lost control and to prevent the earth from burning Zeus struck him down.”

Lopez didn’t even grant that non-sequitur a response. Satisfied that the chute was both big enough to crawl through and not slick enough to send him spiraling back down, he stuck his legs all the way inside and settled down. Only then did Lopez let go of the edge.

“Stay hidden in the dark. Her eyes are red and everywhere.”

Lopez stopped. That last bit… that had almost made a kind of sense. He stared at the strange machine.

“The moon is always important.”

The moment passed and Lopez slowly and carefully began to climb, making sure not to jostle the pipe too much, lest the poor crazy appliance fall in and die.

“I’m not a fucking machine,” it said as he went, with that vaguely childish voice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Can I please get a small coffee machine? (Accents stripped out on purpose)  
> 2\. I always knew their insanity was contagious  
> 3\. HOLY FUCK!  
> 4\. Don’t surprise someone hanging from a ledge!  
> 5\. Er… any chance you speak Spanish?  
> 6\. Whatever you say little guy.
> 
> Surprise! Lopez isn't dead! He's a member of Red Team, no way some of that survive everything bullshit luck hasn't rubbed off by now. XD


End file.
